Its Been Amazing

For the past four months, we've called the Colorado Rocky Mountain National Park our home. This beautiful place has given us a lifetime of memories and so much more. We've been given the chance to spend the most beautiful time of year in a place that makes you feel better just by smelling the air and looking at the horizon. A place that gives you more energy the further you hike rather than wear you down. A place that feels completely untouched by the rest of the world. A place that frees in every way. Free to be who you are, do what you always wanted, and feel like everything is possible. A true feeling of escape from the everyday world that you know.

I know. This is pretty cheesy. I'm thinking that as I'm typing it, but the moment you step foot in this place, it doesn't matter if it sounds cheesy or not. The feelings are real and can't compare to many places in the world.

The first picture is one that I took in the park the first day that it snowed this season. Truly amazing. I sat in a field and just stared at the view for nearly a half hour. I just couldn't stop staring at it.

So I took a picture.

It's been like that all summer. Finding one place after another that looks like a picture in a book. Perfect. Amazing colors, great composition, thought inspiring, and romantic in all senses of the word. However, they're not pictures. They're real and all around us.

So what have we done? We've taken pictures.

More than a thousand!

Pictures from hikes, backpacking trips, visits to breweries, nights at the hot springs, time spent with family, and much more. Even pictures taken at work are beautiful.

It'll be hard to leave this place behind. Sonya and I explain it as bittersweet. Its too bad we're leaving, but it will be wonderful to see family for the winter.

What have we learned from our experience here?

Beauty is all around you. Everywhere you look. Sometimes its the snow covered mountains in the distance. Sometimes its as close as the person holding your hand while you're looking at them. Although we can't take this place with us, we can take our memories, our pictures, and our new views on life and how we love to live it.

I've loved our life here and I know I'll love my life where ever life takes me, as long as Sonya is by my side. Every day we've spent together has made me fall in love with her a little more and has made me realize that I couldn't be luckier than to be with her.

Thank you for going on this adventure with me, sweets. I can't wait to see what's next.